i want to bring in steven moore, editorial writer for "wall street journal" and a good friend of the show. christine romans also joins us. she is the host of "your bottom line" right here on cnn. i want to show you a poll of likely voters. in ohio, florida and pennsylvania, 51% of respondents say president obama would do a better job on the economy. no republican, by the way, has won the white house without winning ohio. florida and pennsylvania are also crucial states. steven, despite the trouble in the economy right now, is this weird opening this weird optimism the end of romney's chance to win? >> yeah. i think that upsurge in consumer confidence is hurting mitt romney, no question about that, ali. interestingly, i looked at the gallup data on consumer confidence and they came to a very interesting conclusion. they found that the big surge in consumer confidence on the economy was democrats. that democrats have had a huge surge where republicans have actually had a reduction in their confidence. what they found, by the way, is normally an increase in consumer confidence leads to